Dragon Castle Page 7

  For now they do seem to have forgotten the young women of the castle. Not that remembering them would do them any good. Aside from the princess, the only female still inside our castle walls is Cook. After Georgi’s rescue of Charity, she and all the other females were spirited out the sally gate with instructions to go to their relatives’ homes in Mesto and remain there until things are again safe at Hladka Hvorka.

  But will things ever again be safe? Will any of us?

  And what can I do, even with Georgi’s help, to save us all from whatever the baron has in mind?

  I wish I were older.

  I wish my parents were here.

  I wish I knew how to make my wishes come true.

  But I don’t.

  The only thing I can think to do right now is to get away—for a little while at least—from this place that feels less like home each day. I slip out the open gate, cross the moat, and walk down the slope until I reach the beech trees of the old forest.

  PAVOL’S LEGEND

  Sedem

  GREGOR WAS BACK. Just as he had done every autumn before, when the caravan of his Gypsies arrived in their land, he left the bright-painted wagons of his comrades to come and spend time with Pavol, Uncle Tomas, and Baba Marta. This time, however, there was a difference.

  Gregor walked through the door of their dom with a sack over his shoulder that clanked as he walked. He dumped out its contents. A pair of swords and two shields.

  Old, Gregor said, but still good.

  And that day they began Pavol’s training with weapons of steel. By the time he was fourteen he had mastered all that Uncle Tomas knew of swordsmanship and waited eagerly for each autumn when he knew Gregor would come back and show him even more.

  Pavol also treasured those visits as a special opportunity to learn more of the world around them. The Gypsies traveled through every land, more or less unseen by the rulers. Even the Dark Lord seemed not to notice them. Perhaps it was because they were so clearly without wealth or property or position in any society other than their own. Or perhaps they had their own special glamour that kept them concealed from his fell gaze. Wherever they went, the Gypsies listened and learned. As a result Gregor’s stories were full of lore and legend and information. Many of the tales, especially those of the foolishness of the wealthy and powerful who sought to cheat the Gypsies and ended up being tricked themselves, delighted Pavol.

  The stories of Gregor that he listened closest to, though, were not the ones that pleased him. They were the tales that filled him with both despair and anger—the sad chronicles of the doings of the Dark Lord.

  “How can I forget what he did to my family?” Pavol asked.

  “You cannot and you should not,” Gregor replied. “Memory,” he said, tapping his head, “is a treasure greater than gold.”

  Then it was Pavol’s seventeenth year.

  Just as in past autumns, Gregor’s visit was like a birthday gift for Pavol. The ageless old man once again brought his stock of stories to share. He sat with them around the fire until late in the night. He praised Baba Marta’s wonderful food. He showed Pavol a new series of wrestling moves that ended with a spectacular throw, demonstrated another subtle technique to strip the sword from the hand of an attacker.

  This autumn, though, something was different. Pavol saw it in the way his three teachers cast appraising glances his way. Something was up.

  “Is it time?” Gregor asked.

  “It is,” Baba Marta said.

  “Ano,” Uncle Tomas agreed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Problems

  THERE’S A CLEARING in Stary Les that is a perfect circle. One of my favorite spots in the world, it’s there that I first saw a hoopoe, a bird so ridiculous and delicate at the same time that it brings a smile to one’s face. Its tall crest swaying on its head, it hopped down from the high branches to perch in front of my face and insist that I share my bread with it.

  It was in this clearing too that a fox came up to me and placed its paw on my knee as I sat without moving. I can think of nowhere that seems more vibrant with life. There’s always music here—not just the songs of the birds, but from the branches and leaves that chorus with the wind as you enter it along the trail that seemed to keep itself clear. I always feel the place welcoming me whenever I approach. The beeches at the wood’s edge bow toward me as trees do when their tops are pushed down by the wind. Even today, when there’s no breeze.

  I run my hand up and down their trunks. There’s not even a scar left where the blade chopped through.

  “It won’t happen again,” I whisper.

  Two years ago I failed to come quickly enough one morning when Paulek wanted to practice. No one else was available or foolhardy enough to spar with him. So Paulek lumbered his fourteen-year-old bulk down to the armory. There he chose not a practice sword but one honed sharp enough to shave with. Then he went to my clearing to do his training.

  At first I think he was delighted to be able to deliver such precise killing strikes with a real battle weapon and watch his bloodless mock enemies fall about him.

  To the right! Utok!

  To the left. Bit!

  By the time I realized what he was doing and came running down to him from the castle, I was too late. Young trees lay all around him, lobbed off waisthigh by his razor-edged blade.

  “Paulek,” I said in dismay. “Look!”

  We looked about us. Stary Les had never been coppiced for firewood or harvested for timbers like other tame woodlands. The Old Forest is always left uncut. It’s kept as a preserve for wild creatures, its roots holding the headwaters of the small river that always ends up flowing, though the end direction may change, into the Silver Lands. In Stary Les, we always walk lightly. It conferred a kind of blessing upon our family. It’s the place where the great Pavol spent his years of growing up. A holy place. A place defiled by my brother’s heedless deed.

  “Oh my,” Paulek said. “What have I done?”

  Somehow, though, his voice did not have the dismay in it that mine did. Instead, he turned to me and said with a smile, “Rashko, you’ll fix it.”

  Patting me once on the shoulder, he headed back up the hill without a backward glance. Though I quickly realized I had to be wrong—for my brother has never been clever enough to be devious—it seemed for a moment as if he had done all this on purpose to set me an impossible task.

  “Fix it?” I said to myself. “Ako?” How?

  Then, without thinking, I reached toward the first fallen beech.

  It was, of course, impossible. As the proverb goes, there is no way to uncut a tree.

  I don’t fully recall what occurred then. All I remember is that one moment I was bending toward that sad, lopped-off sapling, and the next I found myself in the midst of a grove of whole young trees that swayed about me in a sort of dance. There seemed nothing strange at all about it to me at the time. Nor did the voice I heard in the wind saying dakujem, thank you, sound at all unusual.

  I just nodded to the trees and said “Prosim.” You’re welcome.

  I was tired, though. And somehow, though it had been mid-morning when I went running down to the wood, the sun was now setting. I trudged back up to the hall where my brother and my parents were awaiting my arrival at the dinner table. All three of them wore the same smile Paulek had on his face as he deserted me. None of them said a word, but they nodded at me as if I had passed some sort of test. Strange.

  Then Cook came out with not one but two huge plates of steaming, stuffed pirohys mixed with just the right amount of milk and sheep cheese. The aroma was so wonderful that I thought I would faint with delight. I reached out with both hands for the food, eating with a greater appetite than ever before. Then I stumbled up to our room and fell asleep halfway across my bed before I could take off my clothes or remove my boots.

  I’M NOT TIRED now, even after that long training session with Paulek.

  However, even here where the touch of branches and the trees’
soft singing usually soothes me like the caress of a grandmother’s hands, I can’t relax. Too many things are happening.

  How can I get my parents back home? I’ve not ventured again into their chambers where that invitation still rests. Things have been happening so fast that at times it seems as if I am in a whirlpool, the world seems spinning around me. Thinking back, I know that I felt a link, however brief, between myself and my parents. They were aware of me, about to speak. Could I contact them again through that charm-charged card?

  A sort of plan is starting to approach me, like distant footsteps climbing the stairs toward my mind.

  “Young sir!”

  Whatever idea I was about to have runs back down the stairs, out the door, and into the mist of my returning confusion.

  It’s Georgi, of course. Only he would know where to find me at a moment like this.

  “Your, ah, guests,” Georgi says, “need you.”

  I swallow the curse that comes to my lips, clench my fists, walk a few paces away, look up, and silently count to ten.

  Georgi waits patiently, head bowed over steepled hands.

  “You know that proverb, Georgi? Guests and fish start to stink after three days? But what if the fish is already rotten when it’s placed on your table?”

  He smiles. It’s a knowing smile I first recognized—to his surprise at the time—when I was a very small child.

  I was three years old. My father was about to ride out to hunt down a dangerous beast, a sort of monster boar that had been killing cattle.

  There he was, tall and splendid, his bow over his shoulder, a long boar lance in his hand, leaning down from the back of his tall black horse.

  “I say, Georgi, did y’ happen to see where did I put my good hunting knife? Y’ know, the one with the bone handle?”

  It was the third time in a row—I’d learned to count that winter—Father had asked that question

  Georgi’s patient answer was the same as the two times prior. “In the sheath on your belt, sir.”

  And, just as he had done the last two times, my father nodded, totally unembarrassed. “Ano, dobre,” he replied.

  Then he kicked his heels into his fine steed’s sides and he was off, riding as if he and the animal were a single being. Despite his inability to cogitate, my father has always been a centaur in the saddle, a knight like those in the books I was already beginning to read. Though perhaps more forgetful than one of those perfect heroes.

  “Ano, sir,” Georgi said in a soft voice to my father’s back. And then that little smile came to his face.

  “Do we amuse you?” I piped up.

  Georgi looked down, as if he hadn’t noticed me standing there. Of course he had. Georgi somehow always knows where all of us are at any given time and is able to appear as if out of nowhere whenever one of us needs his assistance—whether or not we realize it.

  “What do you mean, young sir?” he asked.

  “If the word ‘amuse’ means what I think it does,” I replied in a very serious voice, “I mean that we make you laugh. You think we are funny.”

  Georgi’s mouth opened rather wide at that point and he said nothing for the count of ten. (I know, because I was counting.) Then he dropped down to one knee. He looked me straight in the eye, a very different sort of smile on his face.

  “Rashko,” he whispered, “I see who you are.”

  “I’m Rashko, aren’t I?” I said. His words had confused me.

  “Ano a nie,” he said. Yes and no. Confusing me even more.

  Georgi took my right hand. I thought he meant to shake it. Instead he turned it so that my palm was facing up. He studied it for a moment and nodded.

  “Rashko,” he said. “That is what you want me to call you, isn’t it?”

  I understood that. “Ano. I don’t like it at all when you or the other servants call me young sir.”

  Georgi nodded. “Of course you wouldn’t.” He put his hand on my forehead. “Best for you to forget this conversation for now.”

  WHICH I DID until this very moment.

  “Young sir?” Georgi repeats.

  I have several questions that I want to ask. First, though, I step close to Georgi and look deep into his eyes. “Georgi,” I say, “have you forgotten that when I was three I told you I didn’t like to be called young sir?”

  “Rashko,” he says, “I’ve not forgotten. It’s good that memory has returned. There’s never been a better time to begin remembering.”

  He holds out his right hand and I put mine in his just as he had placed it when I was a small child. With the tip of his index finger he traces the lines in my palm.

  “Prilezitost,” Georgi mutters, more to himself than to me. Opportunity? “Strashne . . .” He pauses.

  Terrible . . . ? Terrible what?

  A loud sound, like that of something heavy shattering on hard stones, comes echoing down the hill to us from the castle. It’s followed by someone shouting. Screaming, actually.

  “Oh my,” Georgi says, removing his hand from beneath mine. “Trouble.”

  PAVOL’S LEGEND

  Osem

  WHAT OLD GREGOR took from his bag surprised Pavol. Not by its appearance, for it looked to be nothing more than a worn brown leather pouch. But when Pavol took it into his hand, its feel was far different than he had expected.

  It was heavy and light, thick and thin, smooth and rough, warm as sunlight and cool as ice. More than any of those seemingly contradictory sensations, that strange pouch felt familiar to the young man. Though he knew he had never before held it or seen it, it was as if it had always been his.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Gregor nodded, but said nothing.

  Pavol looked around at his three teachers. They looked back at him with carefully composed faces. Waiting.

  “Where did this come from?” he asked.

  Gregor’s answer was much as Pavol might have expected. “From near and far,” the old man replied.

  “And what must I do with this?” Pavol asked, sensing that such a question was expected of him.

  “It is time for you to find those things that fit within it.”

  Pavol tied the pouch to his belt. He had another question to ask. He suspected he already knew the answer he would get. But he asked it anyway.

  “How will I find those things?”

  “By looking,” Gregor replied, a small smile on his lips.

  “You’ll know them when you see them,” Uncle Tomas said.

  “Or,” Baba Marta added with a chuckle, “they will know you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Princess,s Pet

  I RUN UP the hill, leaving Georgi behind.

  As soon as I reach the outer courtyard I can see what has happened.

  Trouble indeed.

  Of course it’s been caused by the princess’s dear little pet, Laska. That vile feline’s disposition is as black as her fur, which is the color of midnight, save for the one white spot in the middle of her forehead.

  I’d hoped that Ucta and Odvaha could avoid notice by pretending to be docile dogs. But as soon as Laska spied them, a light had come into her red eyes. First she had walked close to their noses, trying to get them to chase her. But they simply turned their eyes away from her.

  Don’t react.

  We know.

  Until now they had managed to avoid her. But not today.

  Today, when Laska prowled over and then tried to scratch them, at first they just moved out of the way. Then, when she snarled at them, they trotted out of the courtyard to their favorite place in the shade just inside the entrance gate.

  But Laska did not give up. She waited until they were dozing and then leaped to the top of the wall that rose thirty feet above the spot where they lay. A heavy unmortared stone had been placed up there on the wall to mend the gap where an older stone had fallen into the moat. One push and the stone went hurtling down toward my canine brothers. They both had leaped aside at the last second. However, the roc
k shattered their bowl, spraying them with water and sharp shards of stone.

  Ucta’s wet muzzle is bleeding and there’s a cut over Odvaha’s eye. The two are managing to hold themselves back from attacking. But they are standing, shoulders hunched and feet spread wide, showing their formidable teeth as they growl at Laska. The cat, smug as a pike who has just swallowed a duckling, now lolls in the arms of Poteshenie. She’s bent a bit under her little pet’s weight as she stands in the doorway of our guesthouse. It’s the first time today that I’ve seen her. As yet, Temny has still not appeared.

  There’s more of a glow of glamour about Poteshenie than there was yesterday. Is it possible that she has become more physically beautiful since her arrival? But her attractiveness is not alluring me. If anything, I feel more repelled. Though her face may mystically radiate loveliness, her personality is poisonous.

  “Ayyyy, ayyy, ayyyy! These monsters want to hurt my precious,” she is screaming. Her voice is as harsh as a harpy’s. “Someone help me!”

  Ah. It’s not merely her cat that’s behind this little scene. Poteshenie seems as eager for the demise of my friends as is her feline cohort. Is it just part of her nature that she enjoys causing such chaos and longs for the sight of blood? Can she sense the bond between Odvaha and Ucta and me? Is this all part of whatever plan the baron has in mind?

  Am I supposed to be part of whatever is about to happen?

  I don’t have time to ponder that now. Peklo and Smotana have drawn their swords. Two other bullies standing behind them have fitted arrows to their bowstrings.

  “Prosim,” I say, my voice calm. “Please.”

  I hold up my hands and step in between the soldiers and my four-legged friends. The archers lower their weapons, the swordsmen take a grudging step back. Peklo glares at me as he does so. Smotana keeps that annoying smirk on his face.

  The princess stops shrieking. An accomplished actress, she’s recognized that this little scene is not going to go as she directed. Paulek didn’t come running at her screams. Probably, he is still snoring in his chair. Neither her dangerous charms nor her theatrics appear to have much effect on me. So why waste her breath?